We primarily use the solution to filter out all the spam messages and go through and review other messages that get tagged as spam and figure out what's real and what's not.
Director of IT at Southeastern Site Development, Inc.
Easy to use with a great user interface and an effective geo-blocking feature
Pros and Cons
- "It's cut down on our amount of spam."
- "Sometimes when I'm trying to pull up reports, the speed can suffer."
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
It's cut down on our amount of spam. It has cut down on the number of ransomware attacks which are all generated from email. It's definitely helped out that way. Occasionally I do get one where I need to ask "Hey, is this real?" However, I can go in there and look through the filter and see that one got through, with another 30 being blocked. In the learning pattern that it offers, it can realize tricky emails may have been spam and will tag everybody else's as spam as well. That way, only one, maybe two users might get it. It is really good at seeing and learning.
What is most valuable?
The spam blocking has been good. I like the fact that I can go back in and review old messages that had been tagged as spam before my users can get to them and either delete them so they can't approve them or allow them through.
We use SpamTitan's geo-blocking feature. I have many rules set up. Obviously, in the spam world, the spammers find ways around not being tagged as spam. We tend to get the same type of messages over and over again. Therefore, I have phrases set up to block messages. We're blocking mail by region as well. The geo-blocking feature for restricting emails from specific destinations based on IP or country is fantastic. It works great. All of our business here is done throughout the U.S. and therefore we block most of the stuff from other countries. If I start to see a bad habit form I can block that country or region.
It's not always just spam. A lot of times it can be phishing attempts. There may be people trying to email, saying "Here's your invoice for this product," and it was obvious it's not a product that they had ever ordered. In this day and age with phishing and ransomware, things come through via an unassuming email. We need to protect ourselves against ransomware and this works great. I don't care about junk messages that come through about buy this, buy that, and all this stuff. It's more of the ransomware that I get concerned with and we're trying to block it.
The geo-blocking feature allows us to block spam emails entering our network and servers, reducing our spam intake. In terms of spam reduction, it does equally as well as some of the other items that we've used. However, I really like the features. I would say it easily catches 95% or more of spam. Occasionally, you do get something that slips through, and it's always going to happen.
The user interface experience of SpamTitan is "easy peasy." I like the user interface. It's fairly self-explanatory, fairly easy to figure out, and if I ever have a question, I can call them up or open a support ticket and get an answer really fast. Their support team is fantastic.
It has helped to improve our false positive rate. We don't have very many false positives. The only time I have false positives is from rules that I created. I get people that will sometimes use a phrase or something that will get caught up in the filter. False positives are my own fault, from me tightening security down even further than it should, as I have certain phrases that I use in there, and if somebody puts one of those phrases in, word for word, then they're going to get blocked, and that's happened a couple of times. However, it allows me to go through to check. The users will say, "Hey, I was waiting for an email from this person. They say they sent it and I haven't got it," and then I see them, I see that message in there, and I release it.
It probably saves employees some time. I've never asked them directly, however, I know it has to save them time as they don't have to go through all those messages and figure out what's good and what's bad.
What needs improvement?
Sometimes when I'm trying to pull up reports, the speed can suffer. If I'm looking at the last seven days, if I pull up just today, when it's retrieving the message history, if I pull up with the last hour or the last, or that day, it's fine. However, if I have to go back several days, it could take a little longer than I'd like it. That said, I'm usually not in a rush. Still, sometimes it does get stuck there for maybe a minute or two. It makes me question the network, however, when I check the network speed, it seems fine. It's not a major, major concern. However, if I had anything, I would ask that they try to find a way to retrieve those older messages faster.
Buyer's Guide
TitanHQ SpamTitan
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about TitanHQ SpamTitan. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
824,067 professionals have used our research since 2012.
For how long have I used the solution?
We switched over to SpamTitan in 2020, although we did have it before and we had to archive it. We started using it right around April or May of 2020. It's been about two years now that we've been using SpamTitan.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability of the solution has been great. It's been a stable platform. The only one thing I could ask for is when you're going through to older histories it's just a little slow when you're trying to pull up messages older than a day or two. You try to pull up messages that are three, four, or five days old to go look for an old message, and it just seems like it wants to take a little longer than it should. We're also on a cloud solution. I don't know how many other users are on this cloud. Maybe it has to do with too many users on the cloud trying to do searches or incoming mails at the same time. I'm sure they'll figure it out.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's pretty scalable. It works. We have it for our particular organization and it just fits perfectly. We make it work for us. We have certain email addresses that we always allow through and sometimes it does catch a false positive. Our false positives are a lot less, and that's due to the rules I created. It's just whitelisting those and blacklisting the other ones that we don't want. It works great.
I have 30 users, however, some people have double email addresses as they have an alias address. We're dealing with about 40 email addresses.
How are customer service and support?
Their support is A+. If I can give them an 11 or a 12 out of ten, I would. They've always been there for me when I've had questions. They've answered anything I've asked within a very reasonable amount of time, and if I've ever needed any help they've always been there to jump on in and explain why.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I switched when I took back over for this company. We had an in-house solution, a Barracuda box, which was in-house, and when it was time to upgrade the hardware, Barracuda was just too expensive. It worked really well when we first got it. We enjoyed it when we first got it. However, also with Barracuda, I had to be onsite or VPN'd in so that I could look at messages, whereas with SpamTitan I can be out there doing wherever.
I first demoed SpamTitan five years ago when I was working for a different company, and we went through their demo process of it, and then when we went through to do the purchase of it, the credit card transaction failed as it was out of country. It was based out of Ireland. The owners didn't want to do business where money was going overseas. In the end, they made me find a local company.
We went with a different company that was local to the U.S. then and used them for that company. However, when I came back to this company where I'm at now, and we decided, "Okay, well it's time to get rid of this Barracuda box," I went straight to SpamTitan as I had already had experience with them and with SpamHero, which was web-based. It was nice, however, I remember that I had liked SpamTitan so much better and I was a little frustrated at the ownership of the other company that they didn't want to go with the SpamTitan.
To me, the interface and the ease of use were a lot better, whereas the other one, when I hired a new user, it would quarantine all their mail until I went in there and there was an extra step that I had to take on another product that we had.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was pretty straightforward. The instructions that they include with it are easy. It was very easy to set up through Office365 in my DNS. The instructions were straight and clear, right to the point. I probably could have given this to my kid and he could have figured it out.
The ease of setup and ease of use is always important. However, I don't remember how long it took me to set up. I would say when we had it in-house and our mail was coming in-house, it was set up fairly easy. I want to say it took no longer than 20 minutes just to get it set up and working.
What about the implementation team?
I had to call TitanHQ at the outset. I had questions about the way the phrases worked. It wasn't really with the setup of it, however. While I didn't need them for the setup, when I was looking to block phrases, I wanted to make sure I wasn't looping myself and causing myself more of a headache. I did have questions on blocking certain messages, as we also had one email address that nobody else has that we didn't want messages to be filtered from. I did have to call them to ask them, "Hey, how can I make messages to this one user not get filtered so they get everything?" We got them on the phone and we had it fixed in less than five minutes.
What was our ROI?
We've definitely seen an ROI in terms of just the amount of spam that's cut back and hack attempts that we've been able to block and filter out. For those reasons alone, it's definitely worth it.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is probably one of the more reasonably priced options out there. SpamHero was right in line with the same pricing. However, their interface and their usability are not as easy as SpamTitan.
You get fantastic service with this product. In contrast, if I wanted to call Barracuda with an issue, they never returned calls. It's all web-based, so you can't get anybody on the phone if you need stuff with Barracuda, and when you do it's like pulling teeth.
With SpamTitan, based on their price and actually being able to get somebody on the phone, it just made it worth every penny.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I did not look at other options. As soon as I came back to this company and realized that we needed to switch from Barracuda when it was time to upgrade the hardware, I knew we were more budget conscience. Barracuda is nice, however, it breaks the budget, and it was also a physical device that was in the building. I couldn't remotely manage it. I remembered SpamTitan and the demo I did before and decided to definitely go with them.
What other advice do I have?
With SpamTitan we have our mail, mail that used to be in-house, until July 2021. Now we're using Office365 for our main mail, however, our SpamTitan has always been hosted on its own cloud. We're on the SpamTitan cloud.
I'd advise any new users to just sign up. Just don't even bother considering it, just sign up and go with it. You won't regret it. Its ease of use, ease of setup, and ease of admin all make it worthwhile. Everything is just so easy.
I'd rate the solution a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Almost completely eliminates spam, but not at the expense of holding back valid email
Pros and Cons
- "The fact that it does exactly what it says on the box is what I find most valuable about SpamTitan. They've reduced our spam by about 99 percent."
- "SpamTitan is not particularly configurable. I basically have to accept their parameters for a lot of things."
What is our primary use case?
TitanHq host the solution and I subscribe to it. I forward our email to them and use them as an incoming and outgoing email gateway.
How has it helped my organization?
I now get hardly any spam. I run a small email and web hosting business with about 30 clients. They were always complaining that the proprietary spam systems that I had weren't working, and we were always chasing our tail trying to clean it up. People who are involved with email know that most spam comes from people who indiscriminately sign up to email newsletters and the like. But user behavior is difficult to change. The old system that I had, the native system on the email server, with a couple of plugins that were involved, was just not doing it. It was fairly effective, but I was still getting lots of spam. Now, that is basically gone.
When TitanHQ first approached me, they told me that with SpamTitan our spam would disappear. And they're absolutely right. It has. And not at the expense of genuine emails either. It really has changed the whole spam issue. I get no customer complaints about spam anymore from those people who have signed up with my organization.
Before I started using SpamTitan, my spam system was quarantining about 800 emails per day, and a lot more were getting through. Now, my spam system quarantines maybe two or three per day. That's how effective it is. My own spam system isn't really being deployed because everything that comes into the server has already been cleaned sufficiently. That means the SpamAssassin that I use along with the email server really doesn't have to deploy at all, which has a positive effect on server and its CPU load. The email server is able to be in the business of relaying email, as opposed to checking everything and having to put things in spam folders and quarantine folders.
Another really excellent benefit, and this is not client-dependent, is that all outgoing email is now checked for spam. That means I have an extra security check on what happens on the server. There are between 300 and 400 email boxes on my server, and it only takes one person to be sloppy with their login details and somebody can be using the box to relay email. Just yesterday, there was an example of that. SpamTitan caught it and stopped about 300 emails from going out. That was a bonus because I wasn't expecting to have outgoing emails covered as well, but they are.
What is most valuable?
The fact that it does exactly what it says on the box is what I find most valuable about SpamTitan. They've reduced our spam by about 99 percent.
What needs improvement?
SpamTitan is not particularly configurable. I basically have to accept their parameters for a lot of things.
There are also delivery limits, something like five emails per minute per mailbox. They do that, they say, because they want to maintain compliance, but I can't configure that. I can't be more aggressive about that if I want to be.
Another example is that I have a couple of clients that send out membership emails, and that causes some problems because we're not able to configure SpamTitan to enable those emails to go smoothly. I have to do a work-around at our end for that.
There are a lot of parameters that, if I want changed, I've got to ask them to make the changes. In short, I'd like them to make it more configurable. To be fair, it's a small price to pay for what they're doing for us, but a bit more ability to configure limits would be good.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using TitanHQ SpamTitan for between six and eight weeks.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability seems to be absolutely spot-on. There are backup and redundancy strategies involved. If one server is down, there's another one available. I have never been aware of the backup MX record having to be used.
The proof in the pudding is really our customers' feedback because, had there been any problems in terms of stability, I would have heard about it from our own customers. We've had no complaints. The only thing I have heard from our customers is, "Thanks for doing whatever it was that you did." I have managed to take the credit for what SpamTitan is doing for our clients. There have been no issues at all in terms of stability or reliability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I'm offering the incoming mail spam prevention as a premium add-on to what I offer to my clients. I have four or five clients that are up and running with it, and another three are on a trial. But for the price point that I'm at with SpamTitan, I could probably take on another 15 clients very easily. Our business is very small in volume in terms of what a company like SpamTitan are dealing with. I don't envisage any problems with scalability, even I were to double over the next year.
At the moment, for outgoing email the solution is monitoring about 300 email boxes, and for incoming email, about 50. If more of my clients sign up for the premium offering that I've suggested to them, to cut down on their spam even further, I would like to expand usage of it. I'd like to sell it to all my current clients.
I'm still learning about what they have to offer. We're using SpamTitan as a blunt tool to stop spam, but there are so many other things that are on offer. I have probably only scratched the surface. I haven't really spoken to anyone at length yet, other than the salespeople, about the other things that are on offer, because of time constraints on my part.
How are customer service and support?
In terms of getting to a resolution, and in terms of professionalism, TitanHQ support is first-class. They're not very user-friendly, but I can deal with that. That's a common thing in the IT business. But they are professional and efficient.
SpamTitan is the first external email gateway that I've ever used, so I can't compare their support with its competitors. I could compare it with a payment gateway, like Worldpay for instance, which I use for one of my clients. Worldpay has a great offering, but their technical support is a bit brusk and monosyllabic and not always very helpful. Compared to Worldpay, SpamTitan are much better, with the caveat that, as I noted, SpamTitan aren't all that user-friendly. Sometimes IT people can appear as if they're being put out a bit when you ask them questions about the product. I can live with that. At the end of the day, as long as they provide a resolution, I'm cool.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The setup and ease of use are an eight out of 10, where 10 is easiest. They set up most of it for us. I had to do some work at our end on DNS and it was sorted. That was easy enough.
There's a wee learning curve to the user interface but it's easily negotiated, and once you understand it, then it's fairly straightforward. I would rate the overall intuitiveness of the solution at seven or eight out of 10.
Part of the reason that there was some difficulty for me at the very beginning was that I didn't quite understand how the product worked. At that time I was really only interested in the end results. One phone call got that sorted out. When I started to understand how it worked, it made it so much easier for me to understand how the configuration was put together.
I did a trial that was supposed to last for a month, but I signed up after a week because it was working so well. Getting it set up was fairly time-consuming because each domain that was added to SpamTitan involved tedious work with the DNS. But the setup on the SpamTitan side was relatively easy and very quick to deploy.
What was our ROI?
What it is doing for us at the moment is more than value for the money that I pay. I've already recouped the cost of the solution from my customers who have signed up for it.
It's a no-brainer for me. It has
- given me less work to do
- knocked down the number of support calls
- totally eradicated support calls for spam.
And the net cost at the moment is absolutely nothing. I do realize that the cost will go up if more of my clients sign up for it. It's not something I'm looking to turn a profit on. Still, financially, it has already helped the business because we've got more time to devote to other things since we're not putting out spam fires constantly as we did before.
If all of my clients were to sign up for it, it would be worth about £5,000 pounds a year in extra income for me.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
As a small business, every penny is counted here. All businesses have had problems over the past couple of years with the pandemic. I really thought that something like SpamTitan would be more expensive, but it cost me about $70 (or about £60) a month. I'm more than happy to pay that.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I looked into other solutions, but most of them were in-server, a piece of software that I would have to buy a license for. I would have to be responsible for the configuration of them as well, which would mean upskilling on my part and my employee's part. One of the other solutions I looked at was a fairly big multinational company. The thing that got me into SpamTitan was that they cold-called me. That gave me the thought that, "Oh, there are cloud solutions like that out there. Let me have a look to see what they are."
After having done a bit of research and due diligence on SpamTitan, I went to the SpamTitan website and found out that, with two clicks, I could set up a trial so that's what I did. I couldn't do that with the competitors. I was getting it for free for a month to try it on a couple of domains. They were quite happy to extend that if I required an extension, as I was learning how to cope with the system. They were very confident that it would work and, in fact, it did.
I didn't do as much research as I might have done otherwise because I wasn't thinking that it was a mission-critical thing. It was just a thought at the time that something like that would be a bit of a luxury. It would cost me some money but might be quite useful. I have since found it to be far more useful than that.
What other advice do I have?
My advice is go for it. Absolutely. I really have no hesitation saying that at all. With a lot of software solutions it's usually "horses for courses." How they work depends on your workflow. But with SpamTitan, it's absolutely a binary situation. There are no ifs or buts. It stops the spam coming through and it's amazing.
This sounds hyperbolic, but it's easily the best purchase that I've made since I started this business, 15 or 16 years ago.
I have paid for things, and sometimes I think they're a waste of cash but I'll keep them in place because there might be some small convenience involved, but this solution is really well worth it. I really was pinching myself at the beginning and wondered, "Is it really going to be that effective?" So far—and it has only been six weeks, so there's always that caveat; maybe there is some disaster that's ready to befall me down the line somewhere—honestly, it's just been superb.
It's definitely a 10 out of 10. I have some issues with the technical support, but when it comes to spam detection it would either be a zero or a 10 for me. It hasn't reduced my spam by half—even that may well have been worth the money that I pay for it. Rather, it has cut it out altogether.
The only spam that I get now, doesn't go through SpamTitan. There are some fairly clever spammers who manage to email directly and bypass SpamTitan, but I very seldom get spam. What I do get all seems to come from New Zealand, strangely, and not from the usual suspects, like the Far East or Russia. It's very much in the Southern hemisphere. But what I do get is minimal.
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Buyer's Guide
TitanHQ SpamTitan
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about TitanHQ SpamTitan. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
824,067 professionals have used our research since 2012.
IT Director at a healthcare company with 11-50 employees
Provides good security, saves me an hour a day, and is cost-effective
Pros and Cons
- "Content filtering as well as Link Lock, which is URL parsing, are valuable, but anti-spam would be the biggest feature to help reduce overall spam for the company."
- "The interface is a little dated aesthetically. I know that's a small thing, but it could use a little bit of a facelift."
What is our primary use case?
We are using it as a gateway antivirus. It is for spam protection of our Exchange Server.
How has it helped my organization?
It offers gateway protection. It allows our Exchange Server to be hidden behind the network. It limits the exposure to our Exchange Server.
It saves me an hour a day by not having to go through people's spam. It gives me a little bit of confidence knowing that we have the ability to very quickly block out attachments that we don't want, such as macro-enabled spreadsheets or even HTML files. It's a big vector. It's very easy to configure to block and graylist a lot of things that we see coming in as a vector for email attacks. So, it gives us much better security overall, as well as some time savings on the administration side.
What is most valuable?
Content filtering as well as Link Lock, which is URL parsing, are valuable, but anti-spam would be the biggest feature to help reduce overall spam for the company. It allows users to control what spam gets quarantined, etc. Before we had SpamTitan, it was me going through 300 emails a day to whitelist or release items from quarantine, and now people could do it themselves. It has literally saved me an hour a day just doing that.
What needs improvement?
The interface is a little dated aesthetically. I know that's a small thing, but it could use a little bit of a facelift.
The only other thing is to have more flexibility for multi-domain environments, but I don't know if it is technically possible. Currently, the sending and receiving is limited to your one domain. If you need to split the sending of emails through using different certificates, you don't have the ability to do that. So, multi-domain flexibility would be nice. Outside of that, technically, I haven't found any problems with it.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for almost a year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I had some issues with the last update. It was a little concerning at the time because we could see the emails queuing up in the system, and we couldn't understand why they weren't being released to the end users in the backend. A quick call to support again fixed that. So, there was a hiccup, but the support was there to assist. We were back up and running within 10 to 15 minutes.
I can't really compare its stability to our previous solution considering the fact that we didn't have anything that we managed by ourselves. We don't have anything to compare it to because the Exchange Server handled all the spam before we had this. Exchange is just as stable as sitting on a three-legged stool. So, I would say that it's stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We haven't run into that in terms of disk space and other things to see what it would take to expand it beyond its usage. Currently, I see scalability as not being a problem. If I needed to add more resources to the virtual machine, I could in a heartbeat. Licensing is easy to add on. It's just a support call to pay for more licensing, which is also cost-effective. So, I see it as being a scalable product.
In terms of our plans to expand its usage, we are always growing as a company. We're always adding more demand onto it just through natural hiring and expansion. It's still meeting our day-to-day needs.
How are customer service and support?
They're very responsive. They don't have a phone number to call. You have to email them in order to get that phone call. The lack of a ticketing type of help desk setup is the only thing that is a stumbling block, but otherwise, they are very responsive.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
On the government side of things, they used to use URL parsing as well. I can't remember the name of it. It was a big one, but they dropped it because it was so expensive, and we couldn't afford to pick it up. This has link parsing as well, and it still comes with the appliance.
How was the initial setup?
Its deployment is private. We host it on our own. It's with our own environment. The way we have it deployed is that we have all of our locations across the province. We have VPNed into one central location where we host all of our servers, our Exchange, etc. The SpamTitan appliance sits on that central network, and from there, our email would come in again over the internet or through the government, and then it would go through the appliance to the Exchange Server. That's it in a nutshell. We have a hyper-conversion infrastructure with HP SimpliVity. So, it's sitting on a virtual machine running on VMware right now.
Its initial setup was straightforward. Their documentation was very thorough. I had it all set up as a virtual appliance before I made a call to them to help run through the rest of the setup. They had it up and running within 10 minutes.
There is a very small learning curve. Their support is good. They do call you within a reasonable time. There are a lot of settings in this appliance that can be confusing or inundating to people that aren't familiar with the terminologies or the technologies. So, it can be a little bit intimidating, but I found that for the basic setup, for what you need, it works really well. For any of the advanced tasks, it's only a matter of going to the website to find out how to configure it.
In terms of the ease of use being a factor when deciding to go with SpamTitan, if it's something complex, I would expect good support to be there to help me through it, and if it's something simple, then all the better. So, I don't usually worry about setup as long as support is efficient enough to deal with it. In this case, SpamTitan was, so I didn't find it at all hard to set up or configure or go through the settings. We were up and running in about 10 minutes, so I'd consider that pretty good. I'd rate it an eight out of ten in terms of ease of setup.
In terms of updates, there are updates that become available probably three times a year. I've only seen it once since we deployed it. So, that maintenance is required to update, but otherwise, the system is pretty self-sufficient.
What was our ROI?
We have 100% seen an ROI. We see something come in through a single vector, and we're able to squash it before it does any major damage. On the administration side of things, it's amazing. I can move on things a lot faster with SpamTitan. When I see an attack come in, I can easily stop it in its tracks and prevent it from moving forward really quickly. It has absolutely been a godsend.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Its pricing is good. It's probably one of the most competitive anti-spam and anti-malware appliances out there for email. I was doing some looking around for pricing before I came to SpamTitan, and for the feature set, the price is very reasonable and competitive.
There is an additional cost to Link Lock for link parsing. That was a separate add-on. It's called SpamTitan Plus, and that's how they bundled it. We opted to have that protection as well.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We were trialing Darktrace just to see what it would do. It was decent but grossly expensive. It was tethered to another product that we didn't have a need for. So, we did a trial of that product, and we did have some other experience with the government solution, but this one, we manage ourselves. It does a very good job for the price that you're paying for it. It's very cost-effective.
What other advice do I have?
There is a free evaluation option. Take it and try it out. It's easy to slip into your network and see how it works before you buy it. The support team is there to help you everywhere in between. Try before you buy. That's the best advice that I can give, and chances are you'll like it.
We are currently not using the geo-blocking feature because we are receiving our email through a smart host, where all the emails are filtered through the government to us. It only appears as one geo-location. Another reason why we decided to go with this kind of appliance or virtual appliance was that we're moving away from that platform, and we'll be wide open to the internet, and we didn't want our Exchange Server completely exposed. Within about two months, this system will be handling all External emails from across the world, and we will be geoblocking some countries known to be big malicious users.
I would rate it a nine out of ten. It does its job, and it allows me to pivot in ways that I didn't think I needed to before. If I cared more about the looks, I'd probably give it a seven, but in terms of functionality and how it works, I don't have a problem with it. It works really well.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Director-IT at Cambridge Technology Enterprises (CTE)
Improves efficiency, saves time, and has flexible licensing options
Pros and Cons
- "We are satisfied with the performance and spam filtering provided by TitanHQ SpamTitan. The reporting feature and customizations as per our requirements are also good."
- "We are using the data center version with a dedicated server. It would be more user-friendly if SpamTitan were centralized. That is, TitanHQ should have a SaaS model for SpamTitan."
What is our primary use case?
We use TitanHQ to provide email security. It sits on Office 365 and protects all emails coming into our domain and going out of our domain.
How has it helped my organization?
We have been able to reduce the spam count and the number of phishing attacks, which were higher before we started using SpamTitan. Our reputation has also improved because our internal and external clients are happy with the level of protection provided by this solution.
What is most valuable?
We are satisfied with the performance and spam filtering provided by TitanHQ SpamTitan. The reporting feature and customizations as per our requirements are also good.
We use SpamTitan's geo-blocking feature to block spam emails entering our network and servers. We have created rules to block certain emails, and the geo-blocking feature has reduced our spam intake by 100%.
I would give a ten out of ten for the geo-blocking feature for restricting emails from specific destinations based on IP or country.
Our employees don't have to sort through junk and spam emails now, which saves time. Also, they have the option to release and whitelist emails that have been placed in the quarantine folder. It's a user-level feature. It has substantially improved our efficiency by 70% to 80%.
What needs improvement?
We are using the data center version with a dedicated server. It would be more user-friendly if SpamTitan were centralized. That is, TitanHQ should have a SaaS model for SpamTitan.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been using this solution for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
SpamTitan's stability is good; I'd rate it at eight out of ten. In comparison, I'd rate the stability of Trend Micro and Microsoft ATP at six or seven out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
TitanHQ's technical support staff respond quickly to our emails, and they've had the right level of expertise to handle our concerns or issues. I'd give them an eight out of ten.
Trend Micro's technical support is at the same level as that of SpamTitan, whereas Microsoft's technical support is at a lower level. We have experienced delays with Microsoft.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used Trend Micro and Microsoft ATP. SpamTitan has the edge over Microsoft ATP because it is more user-friendly. Microsoft ATP was very complicated to configure, but SpamTitan can be customized for our own requirements.
What about the implementation team?
SpamTitan helped us to deploy the solution, and they maintain it as well.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
SpamTitan has competitive pricing and flexible licensing. They allow up to 10% more that you use and then add it to the next tier of licenses.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated Trend Micro and Symantec email security and chose SpamTitan because it is user-friendly and cheaper than the other two products.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend SpamTitan and rate it at eight on a scale from one to ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
DevOps Director at University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics
A highly flexible, configurable, and stable solution with outstanding customer support
Pros and Cons
- "The solution keeps a copy of inbound and outbound messages for a period, which is a handy feature. It makes it easier to determine precisely what is happening with an email, where it came from, why it isn't routing correctly, why it is or isn't being flagged etc. If an end user forwards us a problematic email, the header information can be lost, making it harder to figure out what's happening."
- "The interface needs to be improved; some elements aren't where I expect them to be, so it could be more intuitive."
What is our primary use case?
Our primary use case is as a secure email gateway; the solution scans our emails for spam and viruses and does URL link rewriting. SpamTitan makes sure our incoming and outgoing emails don't contain anything problematic.
How has it helped my organization?
Before implementing the solution, I had 13,000 to 14,000 sitting in my Deleted Items folder on 90 day rolling average. The figure after implementing SpamTitan is 8,000 to 9,000 items in my Deleted Items folder on a 90 day rolling average, so it's stopping thousands of emails that got through before.
We are part of a larger University organization, and many spam emails come from the broader organization. They run Office 365, and there is spam it doesn't catch, despite user reporting. SpamTitan filters out the emails Office 365 misses, for the most part, as no solution is 100% effective all the time.
What is most valuable?
SpamTitan is flexible and highly configurable.
The solution keeps a copy of inbound and outbound messages for a period, which is a handy feature. It makes it easier to determine precisely what is happening with an email, where it came from, why it isn't routing correctly, why it is or isn't being flagged etc. If an end user forwards us a problematic email, the header information can be lost, making it harder to figure out what's happening.
Geo-blocking is a great feature. It's simple, and it works; we pick a country, and the tool blocks mail from that country. There isn't a list of countries to select from, we have to type in the country name, and it brings up matches, which is a little cumbersome, but it still works quite well. The feature is good to have, but we don't see a massive influx of emails being blocked.
A huge feature for us is the link rewriting configuration; we can set exemptions for link rewriting from particular organizations. The rest are rewritten and checked against the SpamTitan database of problematic sites and email sources. The user is notified of the outcome of the check, which is excellent when it's hard to determine if an email is legitimate or not.
The solution saves employees' time. Many of our faculty are physicians who don't have much time to check their emails, especially if they need to scroll through and delete spam mail, which can hide important messages. A cleaner inbox is easier to use and saves time, probably an hour a week per user. That might not sound like much, but we had physicians with inboxes so full of spam they stopped checking their emails, which is no longer the case. Our catch rate is up significantly, and our false positives have dropped considerably, saving the end user time.
What needs improvement?
The interface needs to be improved; some elements aren't where I expect them to be, so it could be more intuitive.
The solution isn't intuitive enough for me to go in and write specific rules and exemptions.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using the solution for about nine months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is excellent. We filter 45,000 to 50,000 emails a week through the solution and haven't had any server issues. Physically rebooting the primary server causes a failure to the backup server, which is how it is supposed to work, the stability is solid.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is highly scalable and easy to scale. The appliances are straightforward to get up and running and to add to the system. A few clicks and checks are all that's required.
How are customer service and support?
The customer service is outstanding. If I have a question, I can open a ticket, and they usually get back to me within hours. They can also remote in if I turn on remote access, so they can fix what needs to be fixed or tell us what we need to do to resolve our issue. Their support is fantastic.
I can send TitanHQ a ticket with the information of a rule that requires updating and provide them remote access to our system via a code. Usually, within 24 hours, their rule post developer will have come in and provided a solution for us, which is incredible.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used GFI MailEssentials, but it wasn't being updated. It was almost two years since their last update. They updated their filters and virus database regarding the software, but that's it. We saw an increase in spam getting through, and my team and I spent more time releasing false positives. GFI didn't work well in our multi-exchange server environment and didn't perform as we expected.
We looked for another solution, did a POC with SpamTitan, found it impressive and decided to implement it. One of our requirements was an on-prem option due to HIPPA regulations regarding information sharing, which narrowed the selection down. Another requirement was a solution that sits in front of the email as a gateway. This further limited the selection, and SpamTitan was the natural choice.
How was the initial setup?
The deployment is very straightforward. TitanHQ provided a knowledgeable staff member to support our deployment, and it was clear he was very experienced and wonderful to work with. He was patient and made an excellent first impression. The initial setup required two people, myself and the staff member from TitanHQ, and it didn't take long. We set up two appliances and a failover solution, which we did over three separate meetings of an hour each during the first month of the POC. By the end of the month, I was ready to purchase, and no further setup was required.
The solution is very lightweight in terms of maintenance, we've had one major update over nine months, and that was a click of a button to download and install. We can set updates to auto-install, and the minor updates, including antivirus definitions, happen by themselves. TitanHQ puts a lot of effort into maintaining SpamTitan on their end.
What was our ROI?
I don't have any precise numbers, but I would say the product provides an ROI. An intangible ROI is decreasing the footprint for a phishing or some sort of email related security attack. By doing such a good job of weeding out the bad messages we reduce the number of potentially harmful messages making it to the users inbox. We train our users on how to spot spam messages, but that is not full proof. By significantly catching more spam messages and rewriting the hyperlinks this has further reduced the chances of someone mistakenly interacting with a bad message. Thus increasing our security foot print.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is very reasonable. I know the cloud version costs more because of active 24/7 monitoring, but we take care of that as our setup is on-prem. SpamTitan is in line with what we were paying for GFI MailEssentials but works much better.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I don't remember what other solutions I considered. The person I worked with from TitanHQ was fantastic; they helped me with the POC and any information and advice I needed. That was one of the main reasons I didn't dig much further into other solutions.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate SpamTitan a nine out of ten.
Typically, we don't see large amounts of spam stopped by geo-blocking, but we have the feature activated for a few countries, the major players.
We don't use the geo-blocking exemptions feature because we block the whole country at this point; we don't have business dealings with other countries.
SpamTitan is an excellent product; the only issue is with the UI, which is somewhat dated. TitanHQ is working on updating it, however. I would advise users not to be discouraged by the UI because the solution works well; it's a solid option.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Network Engineer at Purple Language Services Co.
Suspicious links aren't coming through anymore, saving time for both employees and admins
Pros and Cons
- "It's catching things that might otherwise have gotten through in the past. That was when we were working with a site that didn't put emails through two antiviruses before they got to our system."
- "It took some adjustment and some getting used to when it came to where to add the users and the general layout. It wasn't very logical or intuitive. That functionality was under the Anti-Spam Engine instead of Domain or User Policies."
What is our primary use case?
We use it in our email flow against spam and other unwanted emails.
We are a company that provides video interpretation for the deaf and the hard of hearing. We also do in-person and relay services. Communicating with that large percentage of people relies heavily on email. We need to ensure that we have a good, solid way to filter out any unwanted emails or spam.
How has it helped my organization?
We're very pleased with SpamTitan and the functionality that it has given us.
It has saved us money and time. First, it's catching things that might otherwise have gotten through in the past. That was when we were working with a different solution that didn't put emails through two antiviruses before they got to our system. Any suspicious or malicious activity that's being caught in our system isn't coming from email. When you get viruses, it's very costly, and that is where it has saved us time and money. The suspicious links aren't coming through anymore and we don't have to warn people not to click on them.
Before, we would go through tickets that said, "We got this," and I would look at those tickets and wonder, "Did they click on the link?" It would end up being a phishing email and we'd have to scan our systems. We don't get those anymore. That means it's not just saving employees time, because now they don't have to put in a ticket when there is a link in an email. It's also saving time for all of us who are administrators of the spam solution because we don't have to investigate and put a block in because it has already been filtered out.
I don't know what the percentage difference is between our spam catch rate now and what it was, but I know it is very high.
We have not given our end-users access to the portal. If they have spam issues, they put in a ticket and one of our admins looks into it for them in SpamTitan. It's worked so well that we've hardly had to do that. In the last year, we may have had to go into SpamTitan half a dozen times, whereas before, we were getting those kinds of tickets and having to go into Barracuda at least four to five times a week.
What is most valuable?
One of the features I really like is the layout of SpamTitan.
It also gives us more control over the spam functionality. We were able to customize the emails for our end-users. Branding things is very important. It makes it so easy to manage and change, as we've merged with other companies and we're now using a standardized name. There are some more changes coming up and, from what I've seen, it looks like making those changes is going to be very simple to do. I really appreciate that.
What needs improvement?
It took some adjustment and some getting used to when it came to where to add the users and the general layout. It wasn't very logical or intuitive. That functionality was under the Anti-Spam Engine instead of Domain or User Policies.
It could be a cultural thing. I'm in the U.S. and the solution comes from Ireland, and cultures are very different in how they label things. It wasn't very logical for someone in the U.S. in terms of the labeling of the tabs and finding where to do things. We also came from a tool where things were labeled a little differently. But once you get used to it, there are no problems at all.
It would help if we could customize it a little bit. But that issue is so minute.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using TitanHQ SpamTitan for about a year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability of the solution is a 10 out of 10.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's very scalable.
We have a couple of thousand users and we've deployed over multiple different domains, all going through SpamTitan. The fact that it's so easy to put a new domain into the system means there's no problem with the scalability at all.
How are customer service and support?
TitanHQ's support has been phenomenal. Not to downgrade anyone, but when we would contact support for our previous solution, we wouldn't get any response. It took six to eight weeks to even get a response. With SpamTitan, we get a response within an hour or two.
You don't have to wait and wonder if you're going to get the attention you need. They're on top of it. Even if you don't get an answer right away, they still respond to you so that you know you're on their radar.
I would rate their tech support a 12 (twelve) out of 10. They could definitely teach a lot of people about soft skills and customer service, because they're wonderful.
I've only had to contact them twice over the last year because the tool runs so well. One of those occasions was because of the security certificate issue and we just needed a little guidance. The second one was to get on their radar to make sure that the specific KB articles were applied and they reassured us they were. And when we checked, they were. They were just simple questions.
If you compare their tech support to that of other solutions, they rank among the best. I've had to contact tech support for Cisco, for Zoom, and for many other solutions. Even though Zoom has rated fairly high, SpamTitan is still higher. I would give Zoom a seven or an eight out of 10, but SpamTitan is definitely way above that. I have not come across many solutions that have come close, even outside of spam solutions, other than CrowdStrike's technical support. They do get back to you, but they're still not at the top of the game. SpamTitan's tech support is at the top of the game.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Initially, we had Barracuda but it didn't give us all of the features we wanted and they also upped the price by four to five times the rate we had been paying. It also wasn't user-friendly. They had not changed its interface in so long that it was archaic. In addition, it took more time when we needed to block something. With SpamTitan, you just put it in and it's done. Barracuda wasn't as easy to work with as SpamTitan is.
I started looking for alternate solutions.
I found SpamTitan, which had actually been around longer than Barracuda. It had better reviews and more features that we needed and functionality that we wanted, for a reasonable price.
It's also light on the maintenance side.
How was the initial setup?
I led the deployment and the only bump in the road we had was with deploying the security certificate. When we reached out to TitanHQ they gave us direction and it was resolved within two hours. The bumps in the road weren't because of SpamTitan and they really quickly gave us direction and we just ran with it. All in all, it was very simple to get everything deployed.
We did have a person at TitanHQ who worked with us. When we did the actual deployment, we had a meeting with that person and it went off very smoothly. It was after the fact that we found we had an issue with the security certificate and that's when I contacted support.
I was on the deployment call as well as the person who manages our cert and our Exchange Servers, our director of networking, and our CIO.
What was our ROI?
I can guarantee you that we have seen ROI if only because it's blocking the phishing links. That one piece alone saves time and money. Instead of the long and complicated process of having to investigate a link, company-wide, to make sure that it didn't go anywhere, I've dealt with just one instance since we put in SpamTitan and it wasn't a real phishing link. It was just something we needed to block so it wouldn't annoy people.
The fact that it's catching phishing links is one of the biggest benefits. If somebody were to click on one of those links, not only could they bring in a malware infection, but they could give people access to our data.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I love the pricing of SpamTitan and they don't price gouge.
The reason that they can be so reasonable with their cost is that they don't have to spend a lot on support. It's such a stable product that you're not needing to contact them that much. If their customers don't need to call support every other day, they can give them a solution that is cost-effective.
As a company, our rates are controlled by the government. The fact that we're able to get a solution of this magnitude that we can actually afford means anybody would be a fool not to do it.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We narrowed it down to three options: Barracuda, SpamTitan, and one other.
What other advice do I have?
My advice would be "Do it." It's simple. If you want a spam solution that, number one, is going to work, this is your solution. And if you do have issues, you're going to be able to reach someone to get them taken care of without question. You will have very little to do once it has been implemented and it gives your environment a lot of security. What you want to do is use SpamTitan.
This is a phenomenal solution.
The reviews I read about SpamTitan where people would talk about all the good things, and that there are no negatives, are factual. They are that good. It's just wonderful.
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
CEO - Owner at XPConsult
Saves us time and offers excellent threat protection, with fantastic customer support and an outstanding UI
Pros and Cons
- "The overall system is straightforward to use, and the UI is excellent. It significantly streamlines the process of dealing with spam emails."
- "As a Danish company, it would be great to see a Danish translation for the UI."
What is our primary use case?
We use TitanHQ SpamTitan in our organization and deploy it as a service for our clients. The primary use case is as a spam filter and for email sandboxing, which allows suspicious emails to be isolated, safely analyzed, and deleted if necessary. We have used the sandboxing feature for a month and implemented it for our clients instead of Microsoft 365 Defender because it's now included in the SpamTitan solution.
How has it helped my organization?
We realized the benefits from day one because it filters out all the spam emails. That means we don't need to spend time examining or deleting spam emails because the product does that for us.
What is most valuable?
The overall system is straightforward to use, and the UI is excellent. It significantly streamlines the process of dealing with spam emails.
We previously used a Barracuda anti-spam product, first as hardware compliance boxes and then as virtual machines. SpamTitan works better for us as an MSP, and the pricing is right for our SMB customers.
It's very easy for us to do business with TitanHQ. They have a no-nonsense attitude, provide good support, and their financial department helps us out. The system works well, and they take care of us.
The MSP setup differentiates TitanHQ from other providers. We don't make any investments as it's a hosted solution. It is there for us to implement for our clients and profit from it.
There is a significant productivity gain from filtering most spam emails away from end-users. These days, clients expect their MSP to have high-level solutions, and SpamTitan works perfectly.
I don't know precisely how much the geo-blocking feature reduces our spam intake, but it's a substantial amount of spam that never gets to us.
SpamTitan's general configuration works well, and we use the geo-blocking feature for several clients who require geofencing. It's a feature we don't necessarily need very often, but it's there and works well if specific clients want geofencing in their solution.
The solution allows us to set up exemptions and whitelist certain agencies which don't follow standard email rules. This is sometimes the case for government clients, for example, a tax agency.
SpamTitan saves employees' time via automated spam filtering and threat protection. If customers use the built-in Office 365 email protection, they must decide whether an email is spam or not. SpamTitan does that for us and offers excellent security due to its high threat intelligence. I would say the product saves us at least an hour a week and profoundly impacts our catch-rate. We need this solution, as our stats say 50% of all emails coming through our domain are spam.
What needs improvement?
As a Danish company, it would be great to see a Danish translation for the UI.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using the solution for approximately two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We haven't had any stability issues, so I would give the product a 10 out of 10 here.
SpamTitan is much more stable than other solutions we have used; as a web-based solution, TitanHQ more or less runs it for us. We don't have any issues to deal with, which is vital for us; we need a solution that is highly stable and just works.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is scalable and easy to scale. If a client expands from 25 to 125 users, the only change is in the billing; we don't need to lift a finger.
Within our organization, we only have one department, but our clients usually have several departments that use Office 365. This makes it straightforward to set up and manage SpamTitan. Our average customer has about 25 users, and we have 60 to 70 customers, so that's 1500 to 2000 total end users.
How are customer service and support?
Our technical team is delighted with the support. They make a phone call or send an email and get help immediately. TitanHQ offers excellent support.
This is the first MSP solution we have used, but when running Barracuda, we had to do everything ourselves. Sometimes that wasn't easy, but SpamTitan is an out-of-the-box solution, and we are pleased with the support. It's one of the main reasons we chose the solution.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used a Barracuda solution and switched because it wasn't easy to handle as an MSP. TitanHQ built their product with the MSP in mind, so the system works very well for us.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is very straightforward. I was involved in our deployment, but only as a test user. The technical team handled the implementation, mainly changing an IP address in the DNS, and the solution works right out of the box.
The deployment in our organization took just a few hours. We have 70 client companies with about 25 users each, which took more time to change the DNS for almost 2000 users. That took us two weeks.
SpamTitan was easy to set up, configure, and use; we had help and instruction from TitanHQ, which was a key factor in our decision to go with them.
It took one of our employees to carry out the deployment, and it took him just a few hours to teach the other technical staff how the solution works and how to maintain it.
What was our ROI?
The solution gives us an ROI because we pay TitanHQ per user and charge clients per user with a mark-up for us to profit. It's a very simple system.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price and the licensing are fair, allowing us to make a margin on the product. We paid a one-time fee for the sandboxing feature; apart from that, it's just the standard licensing.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Our technical team evaluated some other options, but in terms of ease of use and a web-based solution, SpamTitan stood out to us very quickly.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.
All of our emails go through SpamTitan, so there isn't scope for us to increase our use.
I would advise anyone to implement this solution, it's so straightforward, and we have never had a problem with it.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor. The reviewer's company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: MSP
Senior Network Engineer at Vermont Telephone Company, Inc.
IMAP integration avoided need for a ton of setup work, and reporting provides a practical view of issues
Pros and Cons
- "The discovery work to resolve [issues] has gotten so much easier because we can see what's going on right at the edge of our incoming and our outgoing mail. A regular tech support dude can log in... and get a very practical view of what is going on..."
- "The admin user interface is very granular. Anyone who is in IT can relate to the statement: "With anything granular, there is going to be a little bit of complexity." It can be difficult, on a layer-by-layer basis, to wrap your head around it. Because the administration interface is so granular, some of the categories and some of the settings end up in really odd places. It's hard to figure out where a certain setting is sometimes."
How has it helped my organization?
It feels like we have a little bit more control with SpamTitan than we had with our previous solution. We have a little bit more insight as to exactly what's going on in the cloud. We get full logging of those mail servers. It's been great.
In addition, the solution's integration with IMAP was a big reason we went with it. While it didn't really improve our organization, it mitigated a ton of setup work we would have had to do if we had had to go with something else.
And the reporting is something that has made our business run more efficiently.
Our false positives have gone up, but what we have found is that people actually really like seeing a lot of emails denied and then being able to allow them, as needed. That's been great. It gives them more control over what's coming in.
What is most valuable?
There are two things I find extremely valuable. They are among the most important things for ongoing administration purposes.
The first is that the product offers both inbound and outbound spam filtering and it enables amazing reporting. It's very specific and very easy to track down.
For example, if somebody calls us and says, "Hey, I'm having a problem not getting an email," or, "I'm having a problem sending an email," or, "I sent an email and it's not showing up," the discovery work to resolve those kinds of things has gotten so much easier because we can see what's going on right at the edge of our incoming and our outgoing email. A regular tech support dude can log in and type in very little information about what the customer is calling about, and get a very practical view of what is going on from address to address or regarding a subject line. They can filter on all sorts of different things.
That's probably the most important feature because we do get a lot of people who question our mail service. Now, unlike before, those requests don't come to me. They're very easy for our tech support department to look into and give the customer an answer right then and there.
The second valuable feature is built-in rate limiting. I haven't played with it yet because we have our own rate-limiting solution built into our mail solution on site. But when that needs an update or when that stops working, you better believe that's going to be something I'm going to lean on in the cloud because it's already there. It's already set up. I will just have to type in what we want it to do. That is a value-add. And my boss, the CTO, spoke up and was excited about that as well.
What needs improvement?
The admin user interface is very granular. Anyone who is in IT can relate to the statement: "With anything granular, there is going to be a little bit of complexity." It can be difficult, on a layer-by-layer basis, to wrap your head around it.
Because the administration interface is so granular, some of the categories and some of the settings end up in really odd places. It's hard to figure out where a certain setting is sometimes. I brought up the issue to our sales guy and, from what I understand, they're working on that.
But it's also something I can appreciate because it gives me the flexibility to delegate control to anyone in our organization, whether it be us, as the global administrator, or our tech support people and I only want to give them access to certain domains. I can also give control to a customer who registered a domain through us and who wants to manage their own domain. I wouldn't say it's super-intuitive, but it is granular.
Also, a little bit more email that is categorized as "clean" is coming through nowadays. But with that said, it's doing a great job at blocking a lot of the more obvious, blatant spam—the newsletters and the marketing stuff that you can usually unsubscribe from. Those are the types of emails that 90 percent of people don't want. But compared to our last spam filter, it does let a little bit more email through that is categorized as "clean."
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been using TitanHQ SpamTitan for just over one year. Just a few weeks ago we got our one-year renewal.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's been extremely stable. Everything that it uses has worked. It has built-in error alerting and that has worked. That has told us about what's not working or what's filling up. We're happy with it.
From one to 10, where 10 is "most important" in terms of our requirements for this kind of solution, stability is a 10. That's our number-one priority. We have about 18,000 users in total, and if the solution goes down we start getting a lot of calls.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
From my understanding, the solution is in AWS and TitanHQ can very quickly stand up extra virtual machines and add them to the cluster. The scalability is infinite. I have zero worries about scaling.
How are customer service and support?
They have amazing tech support. They went above and beyond. During setup, they gave us templates for our end-user customers that we could put our name on. They trained our tech support guys. They also reach out once in a while and say, "Hey, it looks like you have an update available for your server. Do you want us to do that, or do you want to do that?" They're very nice. They're not too pushy or annoying. They actually add value, which is a breath of fresh air.
I wish everyone would care and respond the way these guys do. I can't think of another example of where I have been impressed by a vendor's tech support. I have very low expectations when it comes to tech support, typically. They generally do not add any value. I usually feel that I need to pick up that slack and be that person. It's been great that I can actually throw a question out to them and get an answer in layman's terms; something that I understand. They will go above and beyond and actually offer a little bit extra when they reply. That's nice because I don't know their product. They're trying to teach me a little bit more about it so we can both win.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We started with a product called Roaring Penguin. We ended up getting forced out of that solution due to some company buyouts. They were purchased by AppRiver. The thing that was unique about Roaring Penguin was a very unique way of authenticating our users, which we wanted to keep consistent.
We wanted to keep our infrastructure intact and not have to build anything new. A lot of the new spam filters required some sort of LDAP authentication and we were using IMAP authentication. It was great when we found out that not only was SpamTitan less expensive than a lot of the other solutions, but it was very granular and allowed us to do things that we had been doing already with our previous spam filter.
In terms of the stability of SpamTitan versus Roaring Penguin, they are both very good.
How was the initial setup?
I've been dealing with email since I was a teenager, so for me the setup process was really intuitive. Email, for the most part, is black and white they allowed me to set this up in phases and to test it in phases. I had all the confidence in the world, when we were ready to cut over to it, that it was going to at least flow and that everything was going to work correctly. Everything was tested and from there it was just a matter of tweaking things. I didn't need help to set it up, so overall, I thought it was intuitive.
When setting it up, we had a rocky start with just a little bit more spam coming through than we previously had. That was expected to a certain degree because we didn't move a lot of our rules over to it. Our users had done custom whitelisting and we had no practical way of moving that over.
SpamTitan tech support did a great job at giving us a generalized solution for that, which people actually preferred. It was more of a, "We'll catch everything and you guys let through what you want" approach. That has done just an outstanding job. We've been hands-off since the first couple of months and it's been great.
The prep work for the solution took about a week. After that, it took about another two weeks. Week two was cut-over and dealing with some of the extra spam that we were getting. In week three, I focused on outgoing spam filtering, and that also took a little bit of support.
In terms of maintenance of the solution, most requests get funneled my way. There have been things delegated to our tech support department. They have been given training directly by SpamTitan, which I thought was really cool. The training was also recorded and we let our new hires watch that training. There aren't a lot of escalations that come my way. I don't even hear about 95-plus percent of the tickets because they're able to whitelist or blacklist something on behalf of a user very quickly. Beyond that, I get involved with things like a spam campaign. I track down where it's coming from and how best to block it.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated AppRiver and SolarWinds' Spam Experts. We went with SpamTitan because it was the only one with IMAP authentication. But it was not only that. They had a name out there and good reviews. I felt good about using them.
What other advice do I have?
My only advice is that if you're forwarding email to external addresses, and also make use of the outgoing email filter, you may want to test that scenario.
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
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Updated: November 2024
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Buyer's Guide
Download our free TitanHQ SpamTitan Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros
sharing their opinions.
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